The Favorite Sister

The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Favorite Sister was a weird one for me. I enjoyed a lot of it. I hated a lot of it. I ended in the middle of the road.

The plot follows five women throughout the filming process of the reality show that they are on called Goal Diggers. The premise of the show is meant to highlight modern businesswomen and their friendships. The concept of the show as laid out in the book gives you a behind the scenes feeling like you get while watching Unreal. It highlights the blurring of the lines of story vs. real life and how these shows are both scripted and no scripted.

What was strange to me was that based on the title, I thought we were going to explore the relationship between the two actual sisters in the novel, Kelly and Brett. Instead we explore sisterhood as an overall concept between women. In fact, there are very few men in this book at all.

As the season unfolds, we are treated to the knowledge that one of the characters was killed during the filming process. It was the how they got there part that irked me. Each of the characters is fully fleshed out and dynamic. There are no questions as to who these women are. The issue I had, however, is that you spend your entire reading experience believing that you know who these women are…only to find out all the secrets and lies they told along the way.

While I enjoyed the story, I struggled with the end. Even the more likeable characters turned out to be liars and manipulators. Since this was a novel of primarily women, I had a hard time with this being the end result. Every one had a fatal flaw; liar, fraud, drunk, murderer, etc. I'm all for flawed and dynamic characters, but when every single one is made to seem like a terrible person, I take issue with that.

That all being said, the author was able to create a world that I was fascinated with and I was hooked from the first few pages. Even though I was frustrated by the actions the characters took and the way these women were presented, I enjoyed the book overall.

This one is a decent summer beach read. Quick and easy.

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